


Without It Who Am I?

by DirtyLilGreaseMonkey



Category: Emmerdale, robron
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-07
Updated: 2015-11-07
Packaged: 2018-04-30 12:10:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5163362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DirtyLilGreaseMonkey/pseuds/DirtyLilGreaseMonkey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roberts alone and when hes alone his mind wonders, should he finally take off his wedding ring?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Without It Who Am I?

**Author's Note:**

> So there has been a lot of talk about the fact that Robert is still wearing his wedding ring. I really need ED to address this issue and for it to be a significant turning point for Robert. 
> 
> In the meantime I thought I'd give you this, just my rambling thoughts on how Robert might feel about his wedding ring.  
> Thanks to Stulot for encourging me to write this :) Its a bit of a mess but your feedback would be appreciated.

His arm felt heavy, he wasn't sure if it was a physical heaviness or psychological one though, because at the end of that arm was his left hand and upon his left hand encircling his third finger sat a delicate gold band, a band that had stood for so many things, including the power and wealth he had once craved but now was desolate.

He was surprised they hadn't removed it when first arrived at the hospital, but each time he looked down it was still there, shining in the fluorescent lighting of his room. For weeks he’d been stuck in there, fair enough a first he hadn’t even been conscious but now he was he just wanted to escape. He ran his hands over his face, trying to rid some of his fatigue, his left arm barely moving yet screaming with pain that he refused to acknowledge. He hated it when he was alone, like he was now; it gave him too much time to get lost in his own head. He needed Vic or Diane here to occupy him, but Vic was no doubt off somewhere with Adam and Diane was on holiday. He’d told her in a not so polite manner that he was fine and didn’t need looking after but that wasn’t quite true was it. He didn’t need looking after exactly he was big enough and daft enough to do that himself even without the full movement of his arm, he just wanted someone, anyone to distract him from the endless questions rolling around his head. Could Aaron really have shot him? The thought of the possibility alone caused his heart to ache, he had to stop himself otherwise the machine that monitored his heart rate would start beeping and a nurse would be called. Chrissie on the other hand, he knew she had it in her, and his suspicions where only confirmed when she visited him last week, threatening him, pressing down on his wound, and for the first time since meeting her all those years ago he was actually scared of her. He knew she was more than capable for pulling the trigger especially after what he’d put her through. This internal war between Aaron and Chrissie, the same war that had been raging on inside his head for months, was what normally swam around his head when he was left alone, but today, with his arm aching, he found himself looking at down at his hands, hands that loved both Chrissie and Aaron, hands that had made them both writhe with pleasure, hands that had stroked long hair, hers and short hair, his, for no other reason than just to be close to the other person.

He spun the metal ring around on his finger, not an easy task anymore due to his current sedentary state. He fiddled with it, listened to the sound of it echoing around his head as it connected with the railing of his bed. He slide it up over his knuckle and back down again, but couldn’t quite bring himself to actually push it all the way off. Staring at his hands he started to wonder about the meaning being the small gold band.

Before agreeing to marrying Chrissie he never thought he'd get married, never thought someone would love him enough or that he'd love someone the way he loved, loves, Chrissie, he's still not sure. When they discussed rings he was set against it, he didn’t want to be ‘owned’ by her in that way. But as she explained what the ring actually meant, her being married before and all, he began to understand its importance. It wasn’t about ownership, the ring he wore, that she placed on his finger only a few months ago didn't represent **his** commitment to the marriage or **his** love and faith in the relationship but in fact represented her love and her commitment. The wedding ring itself symbolised togetherness. Its significance was both deeply personal and profoundly social; wedding rings adorn, commemorate and demarcate. They bound you to your beloved, until death do you part. But why a ring he’d questioned. Why not a tattoo or a piercing, something more, irreversible? He’d seen these things in other cultures hadn’t he so why was a ring of so much importance here? He was sure he’d read somewhere about couples getting matching tattoos on their ring fingers, not that he’d ever consider something so, so permanent. But that didn’t stop him questioning the significance of the ring itself. It was after all in its simplest form, a never ending circle. Words like infinity and forever came to mind and what couple wouldn’t want to spend all their time together. When he was away from Aaron he found himself thinking of him, could he say the same for Chrissie? Did he ever think of her when they had been parted? In the beginning, yes he did, but recently, even before the move back to Emmerdale, her having put off the first wedding due her stupid father faking a heart attack, had he thought of her like that, or had he gone through with the wedding just to prove something to everyone else including Lawrence that he was worth it, that Robert Sugden had gone away and actually made something of himself.

So after thinking about it he had agreed to wear one, just something simple, gold, nothing too fancy. He can still remember the moment he felt the cool metal slip on his finger, constricting it, constricting him, and from that moment he knew nothing would ever be the same, he would never be the same. That could have been due to the events that had taken place earlier that day. He’d barely made it down the aisle because he’d spent the morning of his wedding covering his own back because his mouth had been on someone that wasn’t his fiancés. Not just someone, Aaron, his mouth, his hands, his everything had been on Aaron. He should have realised then, that the sham of a marriage wouldn’t work. And when he’d stood at the altar looking at Chrissie it wasn’t her that he had been thinking about, it was the scruffy mechanic that he’d been falling for, had fallen for, the same one that just hours earlier had told him he loved him. As he'd exchanged vows with Chrissie it had been Aaron's words in his head. Aaron's words of love, of love he thought he'd never deserved. He knew he was just a trophy to Chrissie something to she could show off and he'd been okay with that, more than okay in fact, if it meant he could live in the big house on the hill, own whatever car he wanted and have more than enough money than he knew what to do with. In that moment he had hated Aaron for being so selfish. Hated him for making him choose, because to him there was never any other option than marrying Chrissie, he’d worked his whole life for it and a declaration of love wasn’t about to stop him. How wrong had he been? Not only had Aaron’s declaration caused him to re-evaluate his own feelings, but he’d had to make another choice that day, one that had destroyed his family, that had almost destroyed Aaron. The more he thought about it the more he realised that without that destruction he would have never admitted his true feelings for Aaron and he’d be living his perfect little life up at Home Farm, but never have been truly happy. At the end of the day he had no one to blame but himself.

He ran his good hand through his hair and sighed. He played with the ring again, a ring that still shone on his hand, a ring he couldn’t bring himself to take off but why? His marriage was over he knew that now so why did he continue to wear the damn thing? He didn’t even mean the vows as he said them, his thoughts were anywhere but on Chrissie in that moment, and when Aaron walked into the room he breathed a sigh of relief. Perhaps if he’d never met him he’d have been happy, but who was he kidding, even if Aaron wasn’t around, there was no way he’d have stayed faithful to Chrissie because he knew deep down that she would never be enough for him. Sure he’d fallen for her, for her good looks, her money, her status, the readymade family, it was everything he’d always wanted, to prove that he could have it all and when he did have it hadn’t been enough.

Oh God he was going to be divorced before his turned 30, how did his life turn out like this? How was he going to cope with a failed marriage hanging over him? Surely though, divorcees where made every day, he just had to look back at his Dads track record to know that marriages never lasted. What was that saying? Over 50% of marriages end in divorce or something like that. Perhaps that was one of the reasons he never thought he’d get married because look at the trouble it caused.

For now though, he needed time to mourn. All those months of trying to win Chrissie back had been for nothing, but had he actually wanted to win her back or was it just the status that came with her. After all it had been him that had broken the vows first, him that had fallen in love with someone else, him that was living a lie, even today, sat here, alone, with the every constricting band on his finger he continued to lie to himself. Maybe he was torturing himself without even realising it, a constant reminder of the promise Chrissie had made to him, a promise that ultimately they had both destroyed.

He remembers Chrissies words as she threw hers at him, were they true, was it that obvious to everyone else? Even Vic had asked him, which he hastily denied of course and he was still denying it to anyone that would listen but more importantly he continued to deny it to himself. Sure he'd spoken the words out loud before. But only to him, only for him. They first time it was to stop him doing something to himself, the second was a reassurance, and the third. He didn't even want to think about the third time. He'd said it the third time to stop himself doing something stupid.

If he took it off would he be admitting his feelings for Aaron?

When it came down to it, it was Aaron who he had lied to the police for. He could have easily done that for Chrissie, but he’d kept quiet and stood by her side as she took the abuse from the rest of the village for the fire at the scrapyard, a fire that was inadvertently his fault. But it was Aaron that he’d tried to protect, was that because he knew Aaron was worth protecting?

Whatever it was he knew he couldn’t just go back to the village and forget about either of them. He knew he wouldn’t be seeing Chrissie anytime soon, what with the restraining order against him. He was the one whose life was in danger and she had the audacity to claim it was her who needed protection from him. What would he do when he got back to the village anyway? He didn’t want to forget about him but how can someone that claimed to love him, and he knew Aaron loved him even when he said he didn’t he knew he was lying, point a gun at him and pull the trigger. At least he hadn’t actually gone through with it, but had Aaron? The memories of both of them would still be lingering and he would have to face the scene of the crime again.

And what was to become of the physical symbol of his failed marriage? His reputation meant everything to him and it was now in tatters. The ring that adorned his finger had been some sort of security to him, it’s not like he could go around wearing black and outwardly mourn the status that he’d lost with the breakdown of his marriage. Things were less plain in these situations. He wouldn’t be mourning Chrissie; he would be mourning the loss of what his life would have been like if he’d stayed married to her.

So should the ring stay or should it go? He’d never been one for awkward situations and in a world where ambiguity only complicated these things, clear signals of change could make the adjustment easier. A clear signal might help avoid uncomfortable situations with people on his periphery. Conversations, with those whom he didn’t have regular contact, casual acquaintances, work colleagues who didn’t know, or need to know, the particulars of your personal life could take their cue from the absence of a ring before putting their foot in it. Clear signals, that thought was laughable in itself, he’d never been one for clear signals, he still couldn’t bring himself to say the words about himself that he knew to be true. That he liked both men and women, that he’d been in love and was still in love with a man.

Chrissie had taken hers off in retaliation, thrown it back in his face but as he looked down at his own gold band, he couldn’t help think that after everything that had happened recently, with Chrissie, with Aaron, with Andy, he didn’t feel right wearing something that no longer had any meaning behind it. He knew Andy hated him, knew that Chrissie didn’t want him anywhere near her and Aaron, oh god; after the last words he’d spat out at him, he knew Aaron couldn’t stand the sight of him.

He hesitated as he pulled it past his knuckle, it was like a lover had died, and in a way they had, not a lover specifically, it was his marriage that had shrivelled up and turned to dust. Something he thought would never happen and now that it was gone, he missed it, missed the security it brought. No matter how things ended between them his marriage to Chrissie would leave a mark on his heart, all be it a black one, but a mark all the same. But what about the mark it would leave on his hand? The outward sign of failure, a feeling his was all too familiar with. He’d failed Aaron too hadn’t he, he’d promised he would be there for him whenever he needed him, but he never was he left the one person who loved him unconditionally, alone.

But this wasn’t about him or her. It's about himself. It was about the scared lost lonely boy who didn't have a clue who he was anymore. With this on his finger he was something, he was someone and without it he'd been nothing. Could he go back to nothing? Could he start again? Did he even deserve that after everything he’d done?

He turned the ring on his finger one last time before finally pulling it off and as he felt it slip past his knuckle a feeling of overwhelming relief washed over him. Whether rightly or wrongly he’d made the decision to start again and he couldn’t do that sporting a piece of jewellery that no longer held any meaning. He dropped the ring on the table next to him and sighed.

He flexed his hand taking a moment for the reality of what he’d just done to sink in. He felt lighter, like a weight had been lifted and the heaviness he felt before had somehow vanished. Yes it was a small step but it was also a big step for him if he wanted to rebuild his life, the right way this time, without pretence, just him, the real him. It was time for the world to meet the real Robert Jacob Sugden, whoever that may be.


End file.
